"... the soil survey will never be completed because I cannot conceive of the time when knowledge of soils will be complete. Our expectation is that our successors will build on what has been done, as we are building on the work of our predecessors."

[ A portion of a letter by R.S. Smith, the Director of the Illinois Soil Survey, dated September 27, 1928, in response to the Comptroller of the University of Illinois when asked to make an estimate of the cost of completing the state soil survey.]

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